The dolphins were free and beautiful. While they wove through the water the slaves were taken out of themselves, caught up by that power, that beauty. Winfrey smiled, floating on her back, and Tae nodded at something she whispered.
Did they feel the surge of sweetness, the almost-sorrow of longing, as if something here would dance in them forever? It stirred in the depths of her, surged into her throat.
The flip of a grey-blue fin, water running from its edge, drops sparkling in a joyful swathe under the beast’s leap—somehow it all mingled with the softness in Tae toward every person in pain, with Alaina’s mischievous grin that lit her face, with the falcon blade, the edge sharp against evil, fighting for goodness and courage.… Everything all suddenly mattered intensely, though Kyrin could not shape it in words. Purpose was all around her; every moment a part of eternity.
“Go on, dogs!”
Kyrin kicked at the water and turned. Scowling, Umar pointed a long arm toward shore, the tail of his white kaffiyeh dangling undone from his turban. Kyrin smiled.
He could not take this moment. It lay in her mind, a jewel of green and blue, of sea salt. She would remember.
Reaching shore was a rushing, breathless tumble of sand and wave that whirled her over and over, scraping her knees, leaving the sting of salt. In high spirits for the good omen of the dolphins, Ali’s men roared with amusement as Kyrin and the rest staggered out of the waves, leaving footprints in ragged curves that the water wiped out behind them.
Kyrin walked up the hill after Tae to set up camp under the palms. By the time she made the rise, she needed another bathe. She grimaced. It was probably too much to hope Umar would stay with the ship.
When Ali called Tae inside their master’s tent, Umar followed. No one else was watching, busy with their tasks. Kyrin crept close to the undulating black felt and laid her ear against it. The stiff wall radiated scalding heat. She pulled back a little.
Within, Ali said, “Do my budding flowers begin to give their perfume?”
“Soon, my master. One cannot force a flower to unfold.” Tae said nothing more. There was a long pause. Kyrin held her breath.
“The bee is shy to sample his flowers under the sun,” Ali said with a longsuffering sigh. “And there is no nectar yet.”
Kyrin stifled her snort. Tae was no oath-breaker, whether she became a woman soon or late. The Nubian’s impassive voice came clear. “It is so, my master. Their bloom is not something they could hide.”
“Ahh.” Ali was satisfied. “It is time for my meat. Go, hakeem, I tire of your inauspicious news.”
Kyrin crept away. That-that eel, who never let go after he got his teeth into his prey. Beside the slaves’ tent she stamped her heel into the sand. Most of the slaves slept under the grove of palms, only Winfrey taking to the patched tent. The leaves above fringed the starry sky, rustling in the moonlight, blending with the lonely, whispering surf.
She woke with the sun and pushed her hair, damp with dew, behind her ears. Ali’s tent rose black behind her at the palm grove’s edge. The sea below framed the felt walls, the blue rollers crowned in white, the sound of their crashing drowned by a ceaseless babble of nearby humanity. Kyrin rolled over on her mat.
Three arrow flights down the inland slope, people ate, bartered, and squabbled around booths of palm fronds. A bustling market had sprung up before the walls of the town like mushrooms in a night. She leaned over and shook Alaina. Alaina rose on her arms with a groan, then paused, riveted. Kyrin held her knees and rested her chin on her hands.
Gaily robed sellers chanted their wares and sold to buyers, both sides arguing, hands flitting, fingers stabbing the air. The smell of roasted meat, fermented drinks, sweet fruit, and warm bodies drifted to her. Sword-bearing Arabs strolled from booth to booth, their sashes bright against pale robes. Light-skinned Persians stalked to and fro in trousers and turbans, attended by watchful guards.
Most of the women wore dark veils and bore baskets of vegetables or fruit on their heads. Some carried fat clay jars, balanced with a graceful hand, or cradled delicate vessels in their arms, or tended booths beside their husbands. A few bare-headed tribeswomen wore red and green, their faces and hands twined with painted flowers and designs of vivid henna. Bangles tinkled as they led goats and sheep to the market or toward the hills.
A few Egyptians roamed in white cotton shentis, coarse or gauze-thin according to rank. An arrow-straight Moor in a crown of parrot feathers and a long-bearded Hebrew in a striped robe bartered, protesting a date seller’s price. Kyrin’s mouth watered.
She could almost taste the short, sticky brown fruits. She had smelled them, serving Ali. They were sweet like honey, but not, Tae said.
Slaves were everywhere, bearing goods or watching riding beasts for their masters or mistresses. Some were ill kept, others Kyrin knew apart from their masters only by the way they obeyed. It tired her, seeing their quiet watchfulness for another man or woman’s word to go, to fetch, to carry.
The palms stretched northeast from Ali’s tent in a thin line, across the market to the town wall. Near the top on both sides of the thick, double-leaved gate, the high mud defense was pierced by rectangular holes for bowmen or spearmen. The finer mud brick houses within the wall each had a square wind tower, airy as lattice—riddled with fanciful windows to catch the idlest breeze and funnel it within. The airy wind towers, crafted in intricate geometric designs, as if a djinn had been let loose with cerulean blue and green, watched over courts filled with leafy trees. Apricots scented the air, and the tang of the orange fruits the fish seller had carried.
Before the town sprawled a group of black tents around the south and east side. Tall-legged beasts with wedge-shaped heads on snake-necks grunted near the tents, kneeling in their places on the sand. Camels could be disdainful animals, but Abul had warned her never to strike one in anger. They were part of the Arabs, bone and blood and breath.
Kyrin rubbed her chin across her knuckles until it hurt. Past the black tents, down the stony road through the blue-brown mountains, the caravan would travel two-and-a-half thousand Eagle miles around a great desert to Ali’s home near the Oman mountains.
Thorny growth crawled around the beginning of the path to the plains, the wadis and rocky mountains where bears and lions prowled. Kyrin licked her lips. She had never seen a lion.
At least in caravan she would be protected. Ali did not tolerate threats to his goods. Last night Tae had said that no ship sailed near her land in winter. She could not ask for passage even if she did find a vessel willing to risk the sea.
She had no gold or silver. And if she ran, with her light skin she would stand out like a pomegranate in a bag of dates. So she would ride a camel. But spring came after winter, and there were ports on the Oman coast.
9
Opponent
Our flesh had no rest….
without were fightings,
within were fears. ~2 Corinthians 7:5
Alaina stared at a line of patterned rugs of blue, purple, and white hung on a tent rope fifty lengths off. “Those women know how to weave.”
“They’re beautiful, but we better move before Umar catches us.”
Alaina frowned. “A good thought.”
At the head of Ali’s camel line near the bottom of the hill, hands on his hips, Umar bellowed, “Abul!”
A few heads turned in the market. Abul came out of Ali’s tent with a bulging linen sack over his shoulder and waved to Umar. He struggled down through the sand toward the line of pack camels, the heavy sack sliding back and forth across his back. Two ragged Arab youths ran up from the market and swarmed around him, throwing taunts.
Alaina nibbled a fingernail. Umar was in a foul humor, cursing at Abul. Poor Abul, he worked hard.
She bent beside Kyrin and snatched up her palm mat, her hair flying thin and pale beside Kyrin’s rich darkness. If she had her sti
ck, the taunting boys would sing differently. Alaina shook the sand out of her mat, rolled it tight, and stacked it on top of Tae’s at the base of their palm. But it was a new sunrise, in a new land. Abul would make his way.
What might she find here? Certainly they had the most wonderful weavers and colors of thread. Huen’s carved feet stuck out of the end of Tae’s mat and Alaina pushed them from sight, her fingers lingering on the tiny toes. Tae was up early; he always was. He remained a man—a man determined to keep his promises, a man who loved Huen.
She rubbed her nose. She was a lowborn slave, now a woman thought spoiled. Even if she went home with Kyrin she could never marry. How Sister Ethelbert would clap. Alaina sighed.
She could be a scribe and win acclaim for her poems and tales. People liked them during the long winters. She could hire a scop to read her verses in Kyrin’s stronghold. Maybe the caliph, who was the king in this land, would read her works. Tae was teaching her to scribe and to read the letters Sister Ethelbert had begun to help her form. Ali needed slaves who knew letters, who had a perfect hand.
Alaina smiled. The skill would safeguard her since she would lack sons. If the Master of the stars willed she would help Tae translate John’s book into her tongue, for her people, like to the Book of Armagh. Not in Bede’s Latin, though his work was worthy, but his word in her own tongue. Owin would laugh long, to see Ali further such a purpose. Alaina nodded. She would become a scribe with a hand to wonder at, and the caliph would notice.
She drew the word jewel in the sand with her toe, and next to it the swirling Araby letters. The Master of the stars enjoyed turning sureties on their heads. She had been so certain she was alone. But he gave her a father and a sister. She would willingly scribe for Kyrin, and divide her life between Kyrin’s stronghold and the nearest abbess’s scriptorium. Tae would go back to Huen, become a general, and perhaps save his land from the fierce lords of the horse and—. A wiry Arab among the string of ragged youths around Abul shoved a thick thorn branch between Abul’s feet. “Kyrin, look!”
Abul staggered to a knee. He got up, his shin bleeding, and turned warily to keep his chanting tormentors from his back. The Arab with the stick shook it in triumph, laughing. Below, Umar grinned, his teeth white. Abul put his hand on his dagger.
Alaina’s stomach burned. It could not come to daggers or some of them would die, and then Abul. Ali or the townspeople would execute him. Tae was not near. There were seven Arabs. And blades—and Kyrin’s fear. There is only me, and I do not have my stick. Alaina shook her head—and burst into a run toward Abul.
There came the dull thud of feet on sand. Kyrin matched her, her mouth set, her brown gaze following the Arabs that circled Abul like crows.
Alaina blinked. Her sister would fight with her despite her fear. A fluttering prickle rose in her throat. She drew a deep breath and plunged through the ring of boys. She grabbed one side of Abul’s sack and Kyrin the other. Abul straightened with a grunt.
Amid a rise of shrill protests, the wiry Arab grabbed Alaina’s arm. His eyes were narrowed under his wide brow above his long nose. She drove her elbow toward him, levered his fingers from her wrist, and twisted around him. She reached to lift Abul’s rough sack again. Her tunic tangled in her fingers and rose to brush her bare knees.
Burn the thing! She didn’t have time to shake it down.
The Arab kicked at Abul’s ankles, and Abul barely evaded him. Kyrin dropped her side of the sack and moved in front of them. The rest of their tormentors gathered behind the Arab, voices high, indignant, calling for blood.
“Go, Alaina!” Kyrin shifted her feet lightly over the sand in the beginning of the martial dance. She did not raise her hands, just stood between them and the Arabs, small and straight.
Abul broke into a stumbling run for the camels. Alaina followed, catching up the slippery sack every few lengths, panting. She heard nothing behind her and could not turn. Was the Arab drawing his blade? “Go on, Abul!”
They dropped the sack at Umar’s feet. Alaina spun.
At the base of the sand hill the Arab crouched before her sister. A blue turban perched atop his curly dust and sun-streaked hair. Barefoot, he had a cat’s slim build. The ragged pieces of robe about his middle were a sun-bleached muddle, and a torn scrap of blue held the thick blade of a curved dagger close to his side.
Alaina’s throat closed, dry. The other Arabs, tall and short, crowded in. Bodies bony and thin, their brown eyes glistened, their mouths a little open. Kyrin glanced over her shoulder, her eyes wide amber. Alaina raised her chin, willing her thought across the open sand. You can fight the fear, see past the pain. Put the jackal down, Kyrin!
§
Tae’s words echoed in Kyrin’s mind. “Run if you can. Submit, distract, attack—do what is needed.” She could not run. So it was distract and attack.
His mouth quirking, the Arab moved forward. He grabbed at her.
Kyrin skipped to the side, half seeing a bloody sword in his long thin fingers. Under her tunic in its soft fur sheath the falcon dagger pressed against her. She left it there.
Doubtless the Arab knew his blade like his fingers knew how to tear roasted quail. His dark skin held beads of sweat, like the plummy kind of cake her mother had made. He will not touch us again. No mother, he will not. She blinked. There was no sword in his open hand.
He lunged in and flicked her ear and the black earring. “Nasrany!” His other hand brushed his dagger.
Kyrin stumbled.
His mouth tightened, and he reached for her shoulder. Her palm met his with stinging force as she drove his arm up, slid her other hand under it and whirled behind him, locking his arm against his shoulder. He rose on his toes with a sharp cry.
She shoved him toward the other Arabs, forcing him forward by the pressure on his shoulder blade. He turned his head and spit at her face. Grabbing his opposite ear, she pulled his head back. He stamped for her toes.
Kyrin levered his arm farther; he bent forward and hissed, kicking back at her knees.
She shifted and her hold slipped. The Arab jerked free. She broke from him before he could turn and strike. He circled her, breathing hard, rolling his shoulder.
Kyrin turned with him, her breath shuddering in and out. Scalding sand pooled around her ankles, and her rucked tunic pulled at her. Her trousers stuck to her legs.
He was no longer smiling, and his nostrils flared. His thin lips promised pain.
Yipping, the other Arabs closed in, shaking fists and sticks. The Arab yelled, and they stopped.
Kyrin backed toward the camels foot by foot. Where were Abul and Alaina? She could not spare time to find them.
The Arab’s jaw flexed. He raised his hands, hunching his shoulders. She heard his teeth grit on sand. He did not seem to feel it.
Kyrin shivered, and backed again. A large hand shoved her between the shoulders, near toppling her to the sand. Market-goers blocked her retreat, grinning and calling cheerfully to each other.
Her heart sank. She slid around the inside of the growing circle, not turning from the Arab. He smiled at her and sprang in a swirl of sand.
She caught the first stir of his shoulder as he drove his fist toward her throat. The blade-edge of her foot found his front knee. His leg buckled. His other knee hit the sand. He bounced back, wove around the knee she drove for his middle, and sank his fist in her side.
Her legs buckled. His third strike grazed her neck. Kyrin’s chest was a bellows blown out; she could not get air past the spreading ache in her middle.
He knocked her warding arms aside with two blows, and his kick to the side of her head was quick. Her ears rang, the ground beneath her clutching fingers blurred. Kyrin shoved out her trapped breath. Her sight cleared a little.
“Kyrin! Get up!” From the camel line, Alaina screamed over the noise of the crowd, tearing at Umar’s grip in the front of her tunic. U
mar cuffed her, and her head snapped back. Beside them one of Umar’s men held Abul with his hands behind his back. His scowl was savage, his nose bleeding.
Kyrin curled her fingers. The hot grains dug into her hands and knees, she smelled sweet and sharp camel dung, sweat and hot earth. Do not break faith.
The Arab stepped back with a grin and a twitch of his shoulders.
Falcon. She glared up at him.
The Arab leaped, his handful of thrown sand stinging her face. His kick struck her arms and knocked her sideways. Kyrin rolled. Surging up with a scream, she blocked his next kick. He struck at her with his fist.
She captured his wrist with shaky strength. And jerked him toward her. He pulled back, his sweaty skin slipping. She slammed her palm into his elbow as she yanked back on his wrist. Before her ears recorded the crunch, she had whipped her elbow into his neck.
He fell, and she let him roll away. His forced-out breath was a groan. His dagger arm flopped by his side.
The Arab boys’ chant stopped. The heat beat down. Kyrin’s smile pulled at her face painfully.
I beat him! Tae said it—I am not helpless. The crowd stared, from her face to her earring and back. The bettors moved forward, quiet as cobras, their swords and daggers at their sides, untouched. Kyrin staggered back from them, ground and sky tilting.
§
Umar’s laugh rang out, and he loosed Alaina. She ran past heated voices and fierce gestures, her heart in her throat. “Stand up, Kyrin! Don’t fall!” She held Kyrin with one arm about her waist, leaving the other free to defend her, how—she didn’t know.
Kyrin shivered, and Alaina pulled her close, watching the frowning faces of the Arab boys and the crowd.
One man stood, an island in the midst of the flow. He drew a thumb and finger around his mouth and clipped beard, his faint smile approving. His balding head made Alaina think of a holy monk. He was tall, not stocky, but somewhere in between, with the strength of a wolf. His brown tunic bore a blood-red sash.
Falcon Heart: Chronicle I an epic young adult fantasy series set in medieval times Page 9
